“Journeyman”: Ep. 11 A big, happy, noisy Christmas

After investing who-knows-how-many hours watching “J’man” (9, actually), we sat down to watch ep. 11 secure in the knowledge that, whatever NBC decides about the fate of the show, at least we’ll some closure, even if the show doesn’t get its back order for a full season.

Episode 12 is the end of our order. If… and let’s not kid ourselves, it’s a long shot that we would get a back nine, given the strike and our questionable numbers…but we wrote it in a way so it could be the series-ending show. I mean, it wouldn’t answer every question, but it would give you a lot to chew on. We would give you some answers, and we’d withhold others. In the case we would actually go on to a second season, we didn’t want to turn over every card, but I think people will find it satisfying, and it’s really good.

More bad news from the Hollyood Reporter, via Yahoo, came today. Money quote:

NBC had until Tuesday to give a full-season pickup to the time-travel drama starring Kevin McKidd. The network let that option lapse, practically canceling the series, which posted its lowest adults 18-49 rating (1.7 rating/8 share) on Monday without a “Heroes” lead-in. The network already tried out fellow rookie “Life” in “Journeyman””s Monday 10 p.m. slot last week.

The story

This show, dealing as it does the the topic of time travel, has always been something of a fairy tale. But this ep. features one of the biggest bits of make-believe ever.

“If you go, Dan, I go, too” Courtesy NBC

Times are bad in the newspaper world, circa 2007. Our hero, Dan Vasser, is being laid off, smack dab in the middle of the Christmas season. His boss, Big Chief Editor, has also decided to quit, rather than follow orders from Big Bad Publisher and cut 25% of his newspaper’s staff.

Next thing we know, Dan is zipping back to the newspaper’s 1979 Christmas Eve bash, a time of drinking, dancing and lots and lots of inter-office snogging and canoodling. Here, Dan and Livia, when she’s not ducking the increasingly aggressive advances of Big Bad Publisher (who, in 1979, is only a young publisher-to-be), are perplexed. Is their mission to save Big Bad Publisher’s father, who Dan knows will this very evening shed his mortal coil (while, rumor has it, making the monster with two backs with a young intern in his office), or are they to convince Dan’s Horndog Dad (a wandering — in more ways than one — newspaper photographer) from leaving his family the very next day.

While Dan’s playing Boogie Nights in 1979, Good Wife Katie is home in 2007, hosting some weirdly formal Christmas caroling concert in their living room and avoiding the verbal daggers thrown her way from Dan’s Mom Barbara, in town for a Christmas visit. Also, Annoying Brother Jack’s hot girlfriend Theresa is snooping the medicine cabinets for prescription anti-psychotic meds. She’s concerned, see, because she’s heavy with Annoying Brother’s child and fears Dan’s nuttiness runs in the family genes.

What we liked about this episode

Dan’s heart-to-heart with Horndog Dad about leaving not one’s family, no matter how bad things are. Curiously, doesn’t Dan seem to make a habit of leaving his family just when they need him most?

Katie’s heart-to-heart with Dan’s Mom about how she still holds it against Katie for hurting Annoying Son Jack. Pretty understandable coming from a woman whose own husband left her.

Livia in the 1940s. And in that red dress.

Livia in red Courtesy NBC

Hot Girlfriend Theresa’s fleeting “how’d I get myself into this” look amidst the craziness that is the Vasser household.

What we didn’t like about this episode

Horndog Dad’s inability to recognize his own son. His own grown-up son, yes, but it is his son.

The whole Dan-blackmails-Big Bad Publisher into rescinding the newspaper layoffs in exchange ofr not revealing that, in ’79, he just sat while grand ol’ Dad died of a heart attack. Now that’s a fairy tale.